Archive for the 'Soundgarden' Tag Under 'Soundcheck' Category

Neither of these teamed tours should have come as a surprise to anyone paying attention.

Both Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden teased their pairing via Instagram last week. Then Rolling Stone broke the news Sunday morning making it official: The two titans of ’90s alternative rock – who 20 years ago this month dropped equally galvanizing and influential CDs on the same day, Trent Reznor’s harrowing The Downward Spiral and the grunge gods’ finest hour, Superunknown – will hit the road together this summer for a 23-city outing that launches July 19 from Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas ($79.50-$125) and wraps with a string of Southern California dates the following month.

That includes Aug. 21 at Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, $29.50-$99.50, Aug. 22 at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, $23.50-$93.50, and the trek’s final date, Aug. 25 at the Hollywood Bowl, $29.50-$125. All of those go on sale Friday, March 21, at 10 a.m. Intense but love-it-or-hate-it industrial hip-hop act Death Grips open all dates.

Seeing as Soundgarden just played Superunknown in full at SXSW, it would seem likely that much of that album might form the backbone of its sets. As for The Downward Spiral, well, the most memorable parts of that self-tormented opus are rarely absent from any NIN shows.

Chris Cornell during Soundgarden's second of three Wiltern shows. Photo: Chris Young, for the Register

Having launched their tour back in November at the Fonda Theatre, Soundgarden finally returned to Los Angeles for an extended showcase of their new album King Animal with three sold-out nights at the Wiltern. While not as vast as the Forum or tiny as the Fonda, the art-deco venue still provided enough intimacy for the band to connect more palpably with their fans.

The lack of an opener acclerated the evening, the reunited quartet emerging from the shadows and directly launching into the B-side "Nothing to Say." Chris Cornell paced the stage nailing the vocals of the psychedelic tinged "Flower," and a shift in energy occurred when the crush of "Outshined" started to blare, a mosh pit percolating in front of the stage.

The pummeling didn't let up as the sledgehammer groove of "Gun" and furious assault of "Jesus Christ Pose" had ears ringing over loudness like I've never heard at the Wiltern. After a handful of older tunes, the machine-gun riff of the fresh track "By Crooked Steps" perfectly blended into the set, propelled by razor-sharp drumming from Matt Cameron.

•Doheny Blues Festival: The lineup for the 16th annual weekend gathering, May 18-19 at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point, has fallen into place. Topping the roster is the new pairing of jam-rocker Ben Harper and blues harmonica great Charlie Musselwhite (their Stax album Get Up! arrives next week), along with the first fest appearance from jaw-dropping virtuoso Joe Bonamassa in three years.

Also in the mix are several Doheny Blues veterans: the uplifting pedal-steel soul of Robert Randolph & the Family Band, belters Marcia Ball and Shemekia Copeland, guitarists Sonny Landreth and Cindy Cashdollar, Zydeco star Terrance Simien, the return of the James Hunter Six and more. Only weekend passes are currently on sale, $100 for general admission, $225 for VIP. More acts are expected to be announced through March.

• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: As you might have noticed when the 2013 inductees were revealed, the HoF is finally bringing its 28th annual ceremony west and opening it up to the public, April 18 at Nokia Theatre. Tickets, $75-$750, are on sale now for American Express card-holders. Hall of Fame and Museum and fan club sales start Jan. 28, with the general on-sale starting Feb. 1. The ceremony airs a month later on HBO.

Who will induct whom? John Mayer and Gary Clark Jr. will play in tribute to Albert King, with Mayer giving the speech. Don Henley will salute Randy Newman. Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Hudson will perform in honor of Donna Summer. And Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters will celebrate the awesomeness of Rush. No word who will give praise to Public Enemy, Heart, Lou Adler or Quincy Jones.

Frontman Chris Cornell kicks things off in Hollywood. Photo: David Hall, for the Register. Click for more.

Soundgarden, the shaggy quartet that, along with Nirvana and Pearl Jam, came to form an unholy trinity of heavy Seattle rock in the '90s, always was an intense force at any scope, more psychedelically sludgy and cranium-crushing than any of its peers from that flannel-wrapped era.

Yet you can't fathom just how astonishingly powerful the group can be until you've experienced their unleashed attack in a small space. Of course, that hasn't been such an easy thing to come by, then or now: the band outgrew club gigs once 1994's breakthrough behemoth Superunknown launched a series of indelible singles (with “Black Hole Sun” making them MTV stars) and Soundgarden leapt from being an opening act for Guns N' Roses to an arena-filling festival headliner.

And with the better part of 15 years passing between their bled-dry break-up in early '97 and their unexpected and uncompromising return to action recently, demand to see them mounted so high that nothing less than a Forum sell-out would suffice. Thus, Tuesday night's lengthy, often tremendous Fonda Theatre performance in Hollywood – one of only three North American shows this month to usher in their long-awaited and very strong sixth album, King Animal – was a rarity along the lines of their hometown reunion at the Showbox in April 2010.

“This place is tiny,” frontman Chris Cornell remarked during his second haranguing of blasé record-exec types littering the room and sitting stone-faced in the balcony. “How did you get tickets to this? I couldn't get 'em.”

Barry Manilow performs at the Hollywood Bowl in July. Photo: Kelly A. Swift, for the Register. Click for more.

This past August it was Neil Diamond who made a long-overdue return to the Greek.

Next summer it's Barry Manilow's turn.

The beloved entertainer, who is almost always on tour – he was the featured performer across Fourth of July weekend at the Hollywood Bowl – will play three nights at the Greek, June 14-16, marking his first stand at the Griffith Park venue since 1980. (Coincidentally, he turns 70 on June 17.)

Tickets, on sale Friday, Nov. 16, at 10 a.m., start as low as $9.99, but most seats range from $49.99 to $249.99.

Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs at the Grove in 2010. Photo: Kelly A. Swift, for the Register

Put it down to this being election week or just the wrong time of year for major tour announcements, but whatever the reason, it's a noticeably quieter time for new shows going on sale.

The biggest local news is at one of O.C.'s smaller venues: Perennial new wave favorite the Psychedelic Furs will join up with veteran California act Dramarama for a New Year's Eve bash at House of Blues Anaheim.

Tickets go on sale Friday, Nov. 9, at 10 a.m., with general admission going for $47.50 in advance, $52.50 at the door. VIP packages range from $80 to $97.50.

Further up Katella Avenue, at City National Grove of Anaheim, metal supergroup Down, fronted by Pantera's Phil Anselmo, will bring its Weed and Speed Tour to the venue on Jan. 18, with Warbeast opening. Tickets, $25 in advance, $27.50 day of show, are on sale Friday at noon. (Catch that Jan. 16 at the Key Club as well.)

As never-say-die fans well know, Soundgarden is soon to issue its first album of new material in 16 years, King Animal, due Nov. 13. Already the disc has garnered elated notices from Rolling Stone, Spin and Billboard.

Now comes the inevitable live promotional push behind its release, a limited tease before another inevitability – full-blown tour plans – is revealed.

Three cities have scored small-scale showcases: New York, Toronto and Los Angeles.

First is the Big Apple, where Chris Cornell & Co. will appear Nov. 12 on Late Show with David Letterman – including a webcast concert to stream earlier that day (at 5 p.m.) on CBS.com and Vevo – followed by a Nov. 13 performance at Irving Plaza.

KROQ's annual Weenie Roast y Fiesta, held once again at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, is known for stellar special guest appearances – Foo Fighters showed up last year. But that isn't always a sure thing.

Given that things were running 10-15 minutes behind from the get-go of the event's 20th anniversary on Saturday (only one year of which, 2000, hasn't been held at Verizon), not to mention a hefty schedule packed with eight prominent bands – Garbage, the Dirty Heads, Angels & Airwaves, Pennywise, Silversun Pickups, the Offspring, Incubus, Coldplay – I had my doubts about available time.

But a mental alarm went off at the end of Silversun's particularly impressive set, which came infused with new cuts from the band's upcoming disc, Neck of the Woods, due Tuesday and spotlighted more extensively the night before at the Observatory in Santa Ana.

Frontman Brian Aubert paused to say some thank-you's: “We're from Los Angeles ... and we never in a million years dreamed of seeing (Weenie Roast) from this perspective,” he said, thanking the “grass people” especially, “because you're the only people I can afford,” a reference to attending the daylong fest as a fan in years past.

August 18th, 2011, 1:45 pm by KELLI SKYE FADROSKI, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Fake Figures may still be in the infancy of its career, but its members are all seasoned musicians. Vocalist Rus Martin, formerly of Newbury Park alt-rock act Hotwire, has played with the likes of Linkin Park, Incubus and Hoobastank. Drummer Justin Pointer was the anchor for the band Nightfall, while bassist Bob Bradley was in metalcore act Scars of Tomorrow, once signed to Victory Records.

Heather Baker, a guitarist from Yorba Linda, has been in a few of bands as well, though most notably the Iron Maidens, an all-female tribute to the British metal gods. Travis Miguel, meanwhile, is perhaps the outfit's best- known name, having been lead guitarist with breakout O.C. metal band Atreyu since that group formed in 1998.

They have served in almost a dozen different acts among them. But now the quintet is forging ahead, finishing up an EP to be released this month as well as playing its first gigs. The band performs Saturday at the Slidebar Rock-n-Roll Kitchen in Fullerton.

“We're still a little awkward,” Miguel (second from left above) admits in a recent phone interview. “We only have a few shows under our belts, so we're still trying to figure out our live situation. I've played all over the world the past 12 years with Atreyu, and I'm totally comfortable playing with them, but then you stick me on stage with new people and I have to rethink this whole thing again.”

Last year Miguel and Bradley, who had known each other for years through the local music scene, began working on a side project – nothing serious, just something to tinker on in their spare time. In December, that effort was given more attention as Miguel suddenly found himself with time on his hands once Atreyu collectively decided to go on hiatus.

It's a season of significant anniversaries. Two of them happen Monday: MTV turns 30 while George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, the granddaddy of star-studded charity concerts, will become 40. More vitally, at least to where rock has ventured in the recent past, is that, as August gives way to September, ground zero of the Seattle grunge explosion will cross the two-decade mark. Three milestones from 1991 will soon reach their 20th birthdays: Pearl Jam's Ten, Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger and Nirvana's Nevermind.

But there's another equally important if lesser-known moment from '91 well worth commemorating this summer – although even the participants involved can't pinpoint exactly when it occurred. Tom Morello is certain it's Aug. 20. Or maybe Aug. 21. Possibly Aug. 22.

“The third week of August, anyway,” he determined during a phone chat last week, adding a hearty laugh. Morello was on his way to San Fernando Valley for rehearsal at a space, it turns out, that isn't far from (nor much bigger than) the spot where he and drummer Brad Wilk first got together with two struggling friends from O.C., bassist Tim Commerford and vocalist, lyricist and budding revolutionary Zack de la Rocha.

Whatever the exact date, Rage Against the Machine was born at that jam sometime in August '91, and alongside its rapid evolution came a provocative influence that continues to inspire, arguably more so than the work of the era's grunge gods.

The group's milestone moment will be celebrated Saturday with one of the most massive concerts of the year: L.A. Rising at the Coliseum, a festival “of, by and for the city of Los Angeles,” as Morello puts it. The event is to Rage what Labor Day weekend's Wisconsin bash is shaping up to be for Pearl Jam, and the lineup is just as handpicked. It includes mighty English outfit Muse, new-millennium punk favorite Rise Against, urban-soul maven Ms. Lauryn Hill, L.A. rap figure Immortal Technique and eclectic Mexican rockers El Gran Silencio.